How can you own numbers? Numbers belong to the world.

In fact what I would like to see is thousands of computer scientists let loose to do whatever they want. That's what really advances the field.

I decry the current tendency to seek patents on algorithms. There are better ways to earn a living than to prevent other people from making use of one's contributions to computer science.

Whenever the C++ language designers had two competing ideas as to how they should solve some problem, they said, "OK, we'll do them both". So the language is too baroque for my taste.

A list is only as strong as its weakest link.

Science is what we understand well enough to explain to a computer. Art is everything else we do.

The manuals we got from IBM would show examples of programs and I knew I could do a heck of a lot better than that. So I thought I might have some talent.